


Heart Miracle

by renstansyuta (kei_yairi)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Drama, Father Figures, Fluff and Angst, Gen, One Shot, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kei_yairi/pseuds/renstansyuta
Summary: It’s about a robot that didn’t have a real heart to feel, and about a professor who tried almost his entire life to create the program named “heart”.
Relationships: Qian Kun & Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	Heart Miracle

**Author's Note:**

> Simply inspired by a Vocaloid Song titled:  
> \- KISEKI (Kagamine Rin)  
> \- Kokoro Kiseki (Kagamine Len)  
> ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IoseIkhAg0 )
> 
> Listening to this song, and relating it with NCT, my mind instantly remember Kun and Chenle.  
> .  
> The Japanese texts in quotes are Kokoro Kiseki (Heart Miracle) lyrics.  
> .  
> So, enjoy~

> 「 _“Saa... me wo akete goran... Ohayou.”  
>  _ _“Ohayou gozaimasu.”  
>  _ _“Watashi no koto ga wakaru kai?”  
>  _ _“Watashi no sekkei-sha desu.”  
>  _ _“SYSTEM ni ijou wa nai you da ne?  
>  _ _“Mondai arimasen.”  
>  _ _“Saa... itte goran... omae no namae wo...”_ 」

“There, now, try to open your eyes.”

I heard the voice again. It was the only voice I’ve heard since my sense of hearing was starting to functionalize. Or should I say that, all this time, my sense of hearing was the only one that was functioning? I’ve never opened my eyes; I didn’t smell anything nor say anything.

There, hearing his command, I opened my eyes.

I looked toward the man who stood before me. He smiled. Again, he talked to me. “Morning!” He greeted me.

“Good morning,” I answered the greeting with the _Voice_ Program that was already there, installed in me. It was broken back then. But this man fixed the program for me.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked as he smiled.

Who? I don’t know who he is. From my sense of hearing, I only ever heard him asked about the status of two cameras inside my head. I had heard him saying about what I should do if I see a wall in front of me, or asked whether I could distinguish the red color from blue. I ever heard a ringing sound from something I didn’t know the name nor the function. Later I learned that it was called “telephone”. After the ringing sound ended, I heard the man talking. He talked by himself. He didn’t talk to me, yet I didn’t hear he talked to anybody. While my eyes were still closed, I couldn’t see anything, could I? But from the talks, I heard this man said something about “professor” when he introduced himself.

He was the one who made me understand all of those things. Once I listened to him talking about fixing me. But I didn’t really remember when I was created. All I know that he’s the one who invented me, built me from nothing. There, I guess he was…

He was... “You are my inventor,” I answered. He smiled again.

“Isn’t there anything that is excessive with the system in your body?” he asked again.

Excessive? Why did he ask that? “There is no problem, Professor.”

“Okay. Now, try to say... What is your name?” asked the man, my professor, as he caressed my hair.

***+*+***

> 「 _kodoku na kagaku sha ni tsukurareta ROBOTTO  
>  __deki bae o iu nara "kiseki"  
>  __dakedo mada tari nai  
>  __hitotsu dake deki nai  
>  __sore wa "kokoro" to iu_ _PROGRAM..._ 」

As far as I saw him, I’ve never seen Qian Kun, My professor, meeting with any other human. He invented many things just to complement his life. Before I opened my eyes, I guess, in his daily life, he was only accompanied by all the things he had invented. Here, I saw his singing toaster, his chirping fan, his automatically-closed-when-not-used mirror, and his other inventions. I saw his name engraved on almost everything in his house were his inventions. I saw that as a statement of his inventions. As I saw all the things in his house, I thought, all of his inventions were special. But then, my professor said something to me.

“I’ve never developed something _covered_ with miracles other than you, Chenle,” he chuckled.

Chenle. Yes, Chenle. He named me “Chenle”. If I remember it correctly, “Chenle” meant “the song from the star”. But I don’t think the “miracles” my professor mentioned before referred to my name.

“ _Miracle_?” I asked as I tilted my head a little. My professor often said the word when he looked and smiled at me.

“But something is missing…” my professor said hesitantly. He rubbed his chin. I guess that gesture meant that he was thinking. Because, usually, after he did that gesture, he would always look at me with a cheerful expression. He would always hold my shoulder with a tight grip. He would always say that he just got an idea. Idea was a result of thoughts, right? That’s why I know when he rubbed his chin, he was thinking.

Hm… I guess I’ve added one more vocabulary into my digital dictionary in my machine brain: thinking. Thinking could produce the idea that made my professor smile.

But this time, I didn’t see the cheerful expression. I didn’t see any change on his face. This time, my professor didn’t smile.

“What is missing? Professor?” I asked. I called.

“There’s this one program I still can’t install perfectly into you, Chenle,” he explained. That time, my professor smiled, but it wasn’t the cheerful smile I used to see. That time, his face wasn’t too bright. The sensor inside my brain showed the gray color.

My professor said that gray was the color of sadness.

Was my professor sad? What had made him sad? Was it something to do with the program that still couldn’t be installed completely into me?

I guess… I know about the program that my professor always talked about. “Professor, when you said about ‘program’, are you talking about the—” I voiced out the conjecture that was written on a tiny screen inside my head. Of course, my professor couldn’t see it from where he was right now. Professor was the one who put the tiny screen inside my head. Back then, when my sense of hearing was the only one that worked, I heard my professor explained about the tiny screen. He said that the tiny screen inside my head was the projection of my thoughts. He would check in once in a while. If it worked out as he planned, he would make another one like that, and he would use it as some kind of a black box. He explained it all to me. He put it inside my head so that no one would ever be able to read my mind. He chuckled his famous chuckle after he said those. But now, I don't hear him chuckle.

The tiny screen inside my head was connected to a red colored box. Professor said that the red box was my brain. The machine brain inside my head was one of his great inventions. But when my machine brain was still working, and before I was able to complete my words, my professor said it before me.

“Yes, Chenle. One program that still can’t be installed perfectly into you, is the program called… HEART.”

**+*+**

> 「 _...iku hyaku toshi ga sugi  
>  _ _hitori de nokosareta kiseki no robot ga negau...  
>  _ _shiri tai ano hito ga inochi no owari made...  
>  _ _watashi ni tsukutteta "kokoro"..._ 」

It needed some time to make myself clear why my professor ever surmised about something being excessive with the system in my body. Now, I’ve just found out that my professor wasn’t the one who invented me. He was just the one who fixed everything in my body, the entire program that installed in me, the system I had inside me, my senses functioned; just, everything. When I saw him as the one who constructed me, it turned out that he was just completing all the unfinished work. Besides all of those, he was not so very different from me.

Both of us have experienced our lonely moment.

If only my professor didn’t tell me, I would never know my actual condition before I opened my eyes and had the power to be able to see my professor. My professor didn’t invent me. He found me in an old storeroom in his work place. No one ever opened the old storeroom’s door for ages. I was discarded after I was considered as a failed product and didn’t have the rights to – even – live. I never knew how old my age was since the first time I’ve been invented. Professor never had the will to tell me. He only said something about three digits numbers. It means hundreds. If my age really was that much, if I had really been invented since a hundred years ago, then…

I was REALLY alone in those long times.

Just like me, my professor didn’t have anyone in his life. He rarely got visitors too. I’ve never known something about ‘family’ back then. My professor said that THAT was why he tried to complete me. He turned me into a robot that could communicate, not just a mere robot that received orders. He turned me into a robot that could ask questions, not just a mere robot that could only obey.

He turned me into something more than just a mere robot, dead thing.

He already made me more than what my true inventor did. I already had a brain, I already could add new vocabularies inside the red box inside my head automatically, and I even already had the machine called ‘lungs’ in my chest. But he still remembered the one program that wasn’t still there yet inside me.

The HEART.

If the program WAS really the thing that could make me perfect in my professor’s eyes,

If my professor was really that determined to spent his time _just_ to find the way for the program to be able to be installed perfectly inside me,

If I really could make the professor happy to had the ‘HEART’, then,

I really wanted to help him… I would do anything I could to help him…

That was my only hope…

> 「 _...kono_ system _o ugokashite wa ike nai yo  
>  _ _omae ni kore wa omo sugiru kara..._ 」

Then my professor told me, “Even when I DID make the program installed in you, I still couldn’t make it work, Chenle.”

“Why was that, Professor?” I asked as I tilted my head.

I saw my professor shook his head. Again, the sensor inside my head showed the grey color. “I don’t know,” he answered. “It turned out the program still spent too much _memory_ to be able to work with the system inside you, Chenle.”

Too much memory? So, when my professor said that I had that _miracle_ , the _miracle_ was still not enough to make the program work with the system inside me? I still couldn’t be the one who could make my professor happy, could I? Am I really that disappointing?

> 「 _...ima ugoki hajimeta kasoku suru kiseki  
>  _ _naze ka namida ga tomara nai...  
>  _ _naze watashi furueru? kasoku suru kodou  
>  _ _kore ga watashi no nozonda "kokoro"?..._ 」

If what I had in me was not enough of a miracle, then why couldn't I stop my own tears from streaming down my face? Why sometimes I felt it was really hard to make my lungs produce some air to refrigerate my overheat machines? Why did I feel that my body was trembling when I saw my professor bent down when he was on his desk, with all of his works, as he was reading all those papers over and over again? Why must he keep reading the papers with “HEART program” written on it?

Why was the program, the one that was called “HEART”, exactly the one that gave difficulty to my professor?

Was that program what I really needed? Was it really the “heart” I want?

Did my hope exactly already make my professor sad?

**+*+**

> 「 _..._ PROGRAM _sareta toori ni utau watashi  
>  _ _sore o egao de mitsumete ita hakase  
>  _ _doushite hakase ga sonnani yasashī me de watashi o miru noka  
>  _ _ano toki no watashi niwa wakarimasen deshita..._ 」

Sometimes my professor would just love to accompany me while I was watching the television. Professor ever said that I could learn so many things from the television. One of the television channels that I love the most was the music channel.

I knew my professor first from his voice. I just loved to listen to many sounds and I loved music very much. There were notes and sounds that were already recorded to the red box inside my head. I loved to sing some songs from the channel. I didn’t sing all of the songs because not all of it made my professor smile. I tried to find which songs the professor liked by watching the channel almost every day. Sadly, there were times when the channel didn’t broadcast any music program. They just talked, and talked, and talked. My professor said that there was some kind of schedule on the channel. If there were no music program at that moment, I could look into some other channel to learn something else other than music.

It was one day, when some channel broadcast something I’ve never watched before. One of the humans in the program was talking about miracles. It was exactly like what my professor had told me so many times. My professor told me that it was a drama movie that I watched. In the movie, a human with a taller body and stronger facial said it to the smaller human with round face.

“ _You are a miracle, YangYang,_ ” said the taller human.

“ _A miracle?_ ” asked the smaller one.

The taller human nodded and smiled. “ _If I don’t have you, I, as your father, won’t be this happy._ ”

‘Father? What is ‘father’?

“ _OK, then!_ ” the smaller human shouted. “ _I promise. I will always make you happy, Father!_ ” said the human with his cheerful expression.

“ _Having you here with me already gave me happiness, YangYang_ ,” the taller human smiled.

‘Father? That ‘father’ human said something similar like my professor did. That ‘father’ human saw the smaller human as a miracle. There, I found myself so similar to the smaller human too. Just like the smaller human wanted to make that ‘father’ human happy, I had always wanted to see the smile on my professor’s face. I wanted to make my professor happy too.

I turned my head and looked at my professor. That time, my professor was seated in front of his desk. He was back to his job again, and I could see the papers with “HEART program” written on it in my professor’s hand. I even saw the computer beside my professor still showing some formulas that I had never known where it would end.

There, I saw my professor turned his head and he looked at me also. My professor smiled, just like that ‘father’ human smiled at the smaller human. Then, my professor turned his attention back to the papers in his hand.

I thought, one day, what if I called my professor with, “Father…?”

My professor turned his head again. He looked at me, and he chuckled.

That… was… the chuckle… the smile… I had been longing to see…

**+*+**

One day, my professor and I were just sitting on the porch at the house of his house. For the first time, at last, my professor stopped reading those “HEART program” papers. I didn’t even see my professor write those strange formulas in his journals. Professor even turned his computer off. After that, there we were, sitting on my professor’s porch, looking at the artificial green grass that my professor invented and put on his small yard at the side of his house.

“Do you know something, Chenle?” my professor asked me suddenly. “There were so many things that you could feel if you have a heart.” I saw my professor’s gaze was directed far to the sky. His gaze looked so far. Maybe my professor was looking to the edge of the earth. Maybe my professor was looking at the sun that was setting at that moment.

I didn’t know.

My professor continued. “With a heart, you’ll know happiness. With a heart, you’ll even know when someone is sad…”

“Really?” I asked.

My professor nodded. He looked at me and smiled. Once again, I could see my professor’s smile. Looking at the smile, I felt…

Happy…

But did you know something, Chenle?” my professor asked again.

“What is it, Professor?”

> 「 _...fushigi kokoro kokoro fushigi  
>  _ _watashi wa shitta yorokobu koto o  
>  _ _fushigi kokoro kokoro fushigi  
>  _ _watashi wa shitta kanashimu koto o  
>  _ _fushigi kokoro kokoro mugen  
>  _ _nante fukaku setsunai..._ 」 

“Heart is a strange thing. The strangest one,” said the professor. He closed his eyes. “Even if you could feel all of those feelings, but your heart still has its limit… there’s some deep pain when you find out that you still can't understand those feelings… with heart, we can feel… yet, at the same time, we can’t understand…” 

“Professor?” I called.

> 「 _...ima kizuki hajimeta  
>  _ _umareta riyū o  
>  _ _kitto hitori wa samishī  
>  _ _sou ano hi ano toki  
>  _ _subete no kioku ni  
>  _ _yadoru "kokoro" ga afuredasu..._ 」

My professor bent his head down. He didn’t open his eyes even when I wanted him to. “For that reason, I felt a bit relieved when I wasn't able to install the HEART program perfectly into you, Chenle. That way, you don’t have to feel that kind of _limit_ …”

“Pro… fessor..?”

“One—no… there are two things that I want you to know, Chenle...” my professor said it slowly. “The first miracle I got was when you were _born_ … and, the second miracle I got after that was… the time I’ve spent with you…”

My professor leant his body to me. I felt my professor’s body was so heavy. It was really hard to support his body, so slowly; I let my professor lay on my lap. Even when my professor didn’t open his eyes, I could still see the gleam on his face for the ray of the orange twilight sun. After that, my professor didn’t open his eyes… ever again.

Never.

That time, I saw the professor smile… and I cried…

I understand, Professor… I understand… why humans were born alone… starting from when humans were brought to life, all the memories they had had been kept inside their heart. That way, slowly, humans will learn about how important those memories were.

> 「 _…ima ieru hontou no kotoba sasageru anata ni  
>  _ _Arigatou, arigatou...  
>  _ _kono yo ni watashi o unde kurete  
>  _ _arigatou, arigatou...  
>  _ _issho ni sugoseta hibi o  
>  _ _arigatou, arigatou...  
>  _ _anata ga watashi ni kureta subete  
>  _ _arigatou, arigatou...  
>  _ _eien ni utau  
>  _ _arigatou, arigatou..._ 」

“Thank you…” I said slowly. I touched my professor’s smiling face. “Thank you for letting me be born and live life in this world… thank you for the days we’ve been through together… thank you very much, Professor…” 

There was one song I remembered that my professor liked so much. Every time I sang the song, my professor would always smile. That moment, my professor was smiling. I guessed, it wouldn’t be bad if I sang the song for my professor. 

I sang the song over and over again until my professor stopped smiling. 

.

.

.

**+*+*+**

.

.

.

> 「 _…sore wa masa ni kiseki deshita  
>  _ _kokoro o ireta_ ROBOT _wa  
>  _ _subete no omoi o kotoba ni nose; utai tsuzukemashita  
>  _ _shikashi sono kiseki mo tsuka no ma  
>  _ _kanojo no kikai no karada wa  
>  _ _kokoro no omosa ni tae kire nakatta no desu  
>  _ _ugokanaku natta_ robot _  
> _ _sore demo hohoemi o tataeta kanojo no hyoujou wa_  
>  _marude...  
>  _ _marude tenshi no you deshita...  
>  _ _“Arigatou... Otou...san...”_ 」 

Nobody, not even Chenle nor the professor, realized that the “HEART” program was actually already working inside Chenle. Even, sometimes Chenle used all the memories about “feel” inside his heart as lyrics to the song he sang for the professor. After all of those times had passed since Professor Kun closed his eyes, Chenle didn’t even stop to sing.

But, just like all the things were not eternal, the “miracle” at last reached its limit. Chenle’s machine body couldn’t endure the size of memory that was spent to make the program work. With the rest of the power that last in his body, Chenle tried very hard to end the song for the last time to the professor. There, after the song ended, Chenle said the words that made Professor Kun chuckled Chenle’s favorite chuckle.

“Thank you… Father…” Chenle said with a smile, before he closed his eyes.

Forever.

**____....++++**=fin=**++++….____**

**Author's Note:**

> This fic means a lot to me.
> 
> Comments, critics & kudos are so much love!  
> Let me know if there anything I should fix?  
> Thank you very much!


End file.
